That’s uploading revenues up front and costs at the back end of 10 years – and the first year is 2010, which means the estimate includes a time span predating the bill? From 2013 on, it’s all rising costs… forever.

Not surprisingly, the CBO itself stated they were pulling numbers out of their assessspeculating as to what any real numbers would look like,

Although CBO completed a preliminary review of legislative language prior to its release, the agency has not thoroughly examined the reconciliation proposal to verify its consistency with the previous draft. This estimate is therefore preliminary, pending a review of the language of the reconciliation proposal, as well as further review and refinement of the budgetary projections.

The Republican leadership is still trying to decipher the fine print, but are quickly getting to the bottom line. Senator McConnell issued a press release saying: “They get there with even higher taxes and deeper Medicare cuts than the first Senate bill.

“Let’s start with Medicare cuts.

“The Senate bill that Speaker Pelosi said Democrats are so afraid to take a vote on cut Medicare by $465 billion.“This latest bill increases those cuts by about $60 billion more.

“How about taxes?

“The Senate bill that Democrats are so afraid to take a vote on raises taxes by $494 billion.

“This bill increases those tax hikes by at least $150 billion.

“So if you were worried about raising taxes in the middle of a recession, this bill raises taxes even more.

“If you were worried about cutting Medicare for seniors, this bill cuts it even more.

That’s real. There’s more that’s real and unreal. The $500-billion taken from Medicare is real in its impact on seniors’ health. That doctors will have their fees further reduced is not real, many already operating at a loss on Medicare business and losses being shifted on to private insurance plans. The tens of billions of spending in future years mandated upon the already near-bankrupt states for expanded Medicaid is real, though not counted by CBO. The negative impacts on employment and the economy are real.

Keith Hennessey has a starting (and startling) list of notes on this bill and its effects, such as,

Raise Medicare payroll tax by 0.9 percentage points for individuals with income > $200K and couples with income > $250K. This means you and your employer pay a combined 3.8% payroll tax on wages above these amounts. (This is the President’s proposal.) This is what they mean by “taxing the rich.” It is also crossing a decades-old line separating Social Security and Medicare funding from the rest of the budget. I would not have expected Democrats to cross that line and violate what was for them an important principle of “social insurance program,” but they really needed the money.

The CBO projects that over the next four years, less than two percent of the bill’s alleged “ten year” costs would hit: just $17 billion of the $940 billion in costs that the Democrats are claiming. In fact, the costs through President Obama’s entire presidency, should he be reelected, would be $336 billion. What would the president leave behind for his successor? According to the CBO, he would leave behind costs of $837 billion during his successor’s first term alone. If his successor were to serve a second term, he or she would inherit a cool $2.0 trillion in Obamacare costs — about six times its costs during Obama’s own tenure. This legislation is a ticking time-bomb.

Comments

Fausta, I’m not sure it cannot be undone. There will be no recipients for years, just taxes, it seems very easily undone. Of course, they are trying to install the requirement of 2/3 approval of the House and Senate to pass the dismantling, but that is clearly unconstitutional. I am hopeful that come November, we will dismantle this legislation mush faster than it took to make it happen – if it happens. I think the Dems will have a hard time recovering from this disaster. They are thinking about long-term control and don’t care about short-term losses. However, I think this “short-term” will last a LONG time. Certainly the dismantling will be a great opportunity to deregulate the health insurance market to increase competition and to reform torte law – the two biggest steps we can take to make health care coverage more affordable for everyone. Another great step would be to remove the employer from health insurance purchasing. There is no reason people should not be responsible for their own insurance, just like car and home-owners insurance.

Progressives are fifty years too late. The Europeans nationalized health care after WW2 but are now running out of other peoples money. Now that we are nearly bankrupt in the US progressives want to socialize health care? None of this will matter in the long run. The combination of higher taxes from the tax cuts expiring in 2011 with the higher taxes from Obamacare will push the US economy over the edge into depression like what happened in the 1930’s for the same reasons. This will drive titanic social and political upheaval and change.